There have been a number of assaults from libertarians on the Gary Johnson campaign, alleging that it is behaving in an un-libertarian manner. I think these people mean well, and they're clearly very principled individuals, but I don't think they see the full picture. In this post I'm going to go through a few of the attacks on the Gary Johnson campaign by libertarians and try to show them that they should chill out.
Gary Johnson Accepts Public Funding
Many libertarians have found it ironic that a libertarian, that opposes public funding for most anything, would accept public funding for elections. And they find it especially distasteful that he's sued the government for funds that it promised but has not delivered. I, myself, don't think that public funding for elections would exist in a perfect world, but we go into the elections with the government we have not the government we wish we had (to paraphrase a certain Secretary of Defense). The Republicans and Democrats get tens of millions from the government, I don't see why we shouldn't fight for the few hundred thousand that their formulas legally allow us to have. I don't think unilateral disarmament is a good idea. I don't see why we should be expected to walk into their backyard and play their rigged game with both hands tied behind our back.
And I don't even think that this is that bad. The funds don't come from coercive taxation, they come from the $3 check off box that appears on individual income tax returns. So I don't think the people complaining about this particular problem have a deep understanding of the situation or they wouldn't have anything to complain about in the first place.
But even if the money did come from coercive taxation, there's nothing wrong with a libertarian accepting public funding. Let me cite the great libertarian Walter Block here, who argues that not only is it allowable for a libertarian to take money from the government, it is a positive virtue. It's relieving the government of ill-gotten gains. It's re-appropriation of stolen loot. Ayn Rand (in her book Atlas Shrugged) has argued this point too. And Murray Rothbard has as well.
We don't have to eschew use of the roads just because the government built them. We don't have to avoid public schools and public parks. It is not necessary for us all to become martyrs.
Gary Johnson Supports the Fair Tax
A lot of complaints that I see around all the time in libertarian circles are aimed the fact that Gary Johnson supports the "Fair Tax." These people certainly mean well, but I think they're missing the point. The point is that the Fair Tax would be an improvement over the current tax system, not that it would usher in utopia.
Milton Friedman said, and I completely agree, that it is necessary to have more than just a vision of the utopia: we have to have positive proposals that bring us closer to utopia, proposals that get us from here to there. The Fair Tax is one of those proposals.
The IRS infringes on personal liberty every day by spying on people's income to figure out their taxes. And it puts people through hell trying to squeeze a few dollars out of them. Getting rid of the IRS is a huge step for liberty all by itself even if taxes remained the same. And the Fair Tax does that.
But even ignoring that point, some taxes are worse than others (more on that in a future post). Some taxes are more harmful to growth than others. The Fair Tax gets rid of the most harmful taxes, such as the corporate income tax and the capital gains tax. This is a huge step.
Consumption taxes are the least bad taxes, so if we're going to have a tax (which really isn't up for debate in America today) a consumption tax is the way to go. Once we get that, then we can argue for lowering the rate and eventually ending federal taxation. And when people see what they're paying in taxes every time they go to the store, don't you think they'll be a little bit more open to lowering those taxes? I do.
I think we need to keep in mind that every revolution in history has, in some way, been a marginal revolution. Small steps are important. We should have a vision of the utopia, but we can't stop there. We also need to focus on how to get from here to there.
Gary Johnson Brought An Anti-Trust Suit Against The Debate Commission
So, in case you didn't hear about this one, the Gary Johnson campaign brought an anti-trust lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates (read it here). Some libertarians think this is un-libertarian because libertarians oppose anti-trust regulation.
Personally, I think it's hilarious. It's a perfect illustration of the absurdity of anti-trust. A lot of libertarians who have read through the suit say it's ridiculous, but I don't think it's any more ridiculous than most anti-trust lawsuits. It's almost to anti-trust what Bastiat's petition from the candle makers was to trade tariffs and quotas.
I want to see them defend this law while keeping Gary Johnson out of the debates (which is what we all know will happen anyway). Why don't they have to play by their own ridiculous rules? Again, why are we expected to walk into their backyard and play their rigged game with both hands tied behind our back? If it brings up a discussion on the absurdity of anti-trust, then good. And if it gets him in the debates, that would also be good. Then maybe we'll win and then we can repeal the anti-trust laws.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Leonard Read's "Anything That's Peaceful"
Leonard Read may have been one of the most important, yet largely unknown, figures in modern libertarian history. After failing in business in Michigan, he moved to California and became involved with the local Chamber of Commerce. He moved up the ranks of the US Chamber of Commerce, and was eventually promoted to director of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He was a vocal opponent of FDR's New Deal. In order to combat what he saw as a lack of understanding of economic principles among the public, which he saw as the cause of the growing move towards socialism, he founded the Foundation for Economic Education, or FEE.
Through FEE, Leonard Read became instrumental in connecting great libertarian, or classical liberal, thinkers and also instrumental in connecting common folks who were interested in these sorts of ideas with the material of these great thinkers. And if that weren't enough, Leonard Read also wrote nearly 30 books in defense of free enterprise and limited government. Probably his most famous was his essay "I, Pencil" in which he illustrates how the free market price system promotes cooperation, and how without it even the manufacture of such a trivial $0.10 pencil would be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible. Milton Friedman famously borrowed the concept of this essay for his 1980 TV series "Free to Choose."
After reading this famous essay, and watching a very inspiring youtube video on how to best advance liberty (more on that in a future blog), I decided the next book I read should be one by Leonard Read. I chose "Anything That's Peaceful," which he authored in 1964, because it happens to be the only one in print by the Mises Institute at the moment (although they have the pdf's of many more).
Read begins this book by briefly deriving and expressing what he supposes to be the purpose of life: To continue evolving one's knowledge and consciousness in order to become more like the "infinite consciousness" (God). I don't often read books in search of the meaning of life, and I certainly didn't expect to find it expressed in a book about political philosophy, but I'm glad Read included it. I think it says a lot about Read, as well as the libertarian movement. Supporters of the free market are often derided as "greedy" and "materialistic" by proponents of the various socialist ideologies. But I think the reality is much different. It is the Marxists and socialists who look only at what is material and measurable. Supporters of the free market, from Adam Smith to Charles Murray, try to understand and treat the "whole man" (as Barry Goldwater called it in his book "Conscience of a Conservative"), including not just his material circumstances and his animal instincts, but also his creative and spiritual aspects as well.
Moving on from his ambitious premise, Read moves uses the next few chapters to explain the folly of socialism. He first explains that, behind the curtain of rational and scientific planners and benevolent overlords, it is only violence that holds up the socialist state. It is men with guns commanding others, without guns, to do as they are told upon pain of death. He demonstrates how even the most trivial law, backed up nominally by the most trivial fine, will ultimately lead to a man with a gun coming to your house to shoot you if you absolutely refuse to recognize the law. He gives a couple of humorous, but tragic, real world examples to back up his demonstration. And Read goes on to further demonstrate that socialism does not allow for creative solutions to human wants, harms the individual by removing his sense of self-responsibility (what Read argues is "the very essence of his being"), and does not produce products and labor which are the most valuable to the consumer because transactions take place only under duress.
The thesis of this book is that any peaceful activity should be allowed to take place, and only violent or fraudulent activity should be punished by government. It is a total rejection of the "mixed economy" we have today (and really have had, in some form or another, back even to our founding). In order to prove his thesis, Read spends the final five chapters of the book taking on two of the largest socialist enterprises in our mixed economy: the post office and public education.
I really enjoy reading books by libertarians from this period of history. I'm not sure what it is about them. It might be the style and voice (they had a slightly different vocabulary, and a common literary reference point that, thankfully or unfortunately, we don't really have today). It might also be the fact that they were being ideologically besieged from all sides; the fact that they were losing their grasp on liberty with alarming speed, and they were losing the arguments in the mind of the public. The New Deal and the Great Society were the great socialist enterprises which came into being in the US around this time, but overseas as well you saw the rise of National Socialism and Communism. Even in largely capitalist countries you had governments moving in to nationalize this industry or that industry, to forcibly unionize people, and so on. That had to have had an effect on the writers from this era.
Today, fortunately, it is very rare to find someone who actually thinks that a state-run society can produce more or better products than a competitive capitalist market. We still have to deal with those who wish to do good with other people's forcibly taken money, but only a few nuts suggest that the oil industry, for example, should be nationalized. Or the car industry. Or most other industries. The thought today is largely that there are a few exceptional industries (such as education, transportation, first class mail delivery, and a few others such as healthcare) that may be better run by the government, and many more that need to be "regulated," but wholesale socialism is largely rejected.
As a Christian and a minarchist, Leonard Read comes at libertarianism from a very similar place as I do. I've downloaded a few more of his books, and I look forward to reading them.
Through FEE, Leonard Read became instrumental in connecting great libertarian, or classical liberal, thinkers and also instrumental in connecting common folks who were interested in these sorts of ideas with the material of these great thinkers. And if that weren't enough, Leonard Read also wrote nearly 30 books in defense of free enterprise and limited government. Probably his most famous was his essay "I, Pencil" in which he illustrates how the free market price system promotes cooperation, and how without it even the manufacture of such a trivial $0.10 pencil would be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible. Milton Friedman famously borrowed the concept of this essay for his 1980 TV series "Free to Choose."
After reading this famous essay, and watching a very inspiring youtube video on how to best advance liberty (more on that in a future blog), I decided the next book I read should be one by Leonard Read. I chose "Anything That's Peaceful," which he authored in 1964, because it happens to be the only one in print by the Mises Institute at the moment (although they have the pdf's of many more).
Read begins this book by briefly deriving and expressing what he supposes to be the purpose of life: To continue evolving one's knowledge and consciousness in order to become more like the "infinite consciousness" (God). I don't often read books in search of the meaning of life, and I certainly didn't expect to find it expressed in a book about political philosophy, but I'm glad Read included it. I think it says a lot about Read, as well as the libertarian movement. Supporters of the free market are often derided as "greedy" and "materialistic" by proponents of the various socialist ideologies. But I think the reality is much different. It is the Marxists and socialists who look only at what is material and measurable. Supporters of the free market, from Adam Smith to Charles Murray, try to understand and treat the "whole man" (as Barry Goldwater called it in his book "Conscience of a Conservative"), including not just his material circumstances and his animal instincts, but also his creative and spiritual aspects as well.
Moving on from his ambitious premise, Read moves uses the next few chapters to explain the folly of socialism. He first explains that, behind the curtain of rational and scientific planners and benevolent overlords, it is only violence that holds up the socialist state. It is men with guns commanding others, without guns, to do as they are told upon pain of death. He demonstrates how even the most trivial law, backed up nominally by the most trivial fine, will ultimately lead to a man with a gun coming to your house to shoot you if you absolutely refuse to recognize the law. He gives a couple of humorous, but tragic, real world examples to back up his demonstration. And Read goes on to further demonstrate that socialism does not allow for creative solutions to human wants, harms the individual by removing his sense of self-responsibility (what Read argues is "the very essence of his being"), and does not produce products and labor which are the most valuable to the consumer because transactions take place only under duress.
The thesis of this book is that any peaceful activity should be allowed to take place, and only violent or fraudulent activity should be punished by government. It is a total rejection of the "mixed economy" we have today (and really have had, in some form or another, back even to our founding). In order to prove his thesis, Read spends the final five chapters of the book taking on two of the largest socialist enterprises in our mixed economy: the post office and public education.
I really enjoy reading books by libertarians from this period of history. I'm not sure what it is about them. It might be the style and voice (they had a slightly different vocabulary, and a common literary reference point that, thankfully or unfortunately, we don't really have today). It might also be the fact that they were being ideologically besieged from all sides; the fact that they were losing their grasp on liberty with alarming speed, and they were losing the arguments in the mind of the public. The New Deal and the Great Society were the great socialist enterprises which came into being in the US around this time, but overseas as well you saw the rise of National Socialism and Communism. Even in largely capitalist countries you had governments moving in to nationalize this industry or that industry, to forcibly unionize people, and so on. That had to have had an effect on the writers from this era.
Today, fortunately, it is very rare to find someone who actually thinks that a state-run society can produce more or better products than a competitive capitalist market. We still have to deal with those who wish to do good with other people's forcibly taken money, but only a few nuts suggest that the oil industry, for example, should be nationalized. Or the car industry. Or most other industries. The thought today is largely that there are a few exceptional industries (such as education, transportation, first class mail delivery, and a few others such as healthcare) that may be better run by the government, and many more that need to be "regulated," but wholesale socialism is largely rejected.
As a Christian and a minarchist, Leonard Read comes at libertarianism from a very similar place as I do. I've downloaded a few more of his books, and I look forward to reading them.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Energy Independence Is Economic Suicide
Every single American politician seems to promise energy independence. When they don't deliver (as they inevitably won't), they get knocked for not following through on their promise. I, for one, am very glad that they don't proceed down that path. It's certainly possible to free ourselves from foreign oil,
but it would be extremely expensive, not free. It wouldn't even be intelligent. In fact, given current market conditions, it would be economic suicide. It would be Smoot-Hawley times 100.
What am I talking about? Let's have a little thought experiment.
Imagine that we had a machine that could, with very little
energy, transform 14 bushels of corn grown in Iowa into
1 barrel of oil. Since America is very good at producing corn but not currently
all that good at producing oil, we would regard this as a fantastic invention!
Well what if I told you we already have this invention, but it isn't a
technological one, it's an economic one. One that the great economist Milton
Friedman talked about frequently: free
trade.
We send Saudi Arabia, Venezuela,
and Canada our corn and they send us back barrels of oil.
Do we really want to break this
marvelous invention, which transforms things we don't need but are very good at
producing into things we do need and are very bad at producing, just so that we
can claim to be "self-sufficient?" We could certainly survive, but
our standard of living would go down dramatically because many of our workers, and much of
our capital, would have to be diverted from efficiently producing corn (and
other things we are good at making) into inefficiently producing energy.
Take this whole problem down a
few levels, down to the family level.
Nearly every family in the United States relies on trade with other
families in order to meet their basic needs.
In the old days this may not have been quite as true. My Grandmother, for instance, lived in a sod
hovel in Montana for part of her life.
Her family built that hovel. Her
family grew most of the food they ate, they drew their own water out of a well,
and they made most of the clothes that they wore.
They were very self-sufficient,
and many would consider that a good thing.
But in reality that family was very good at doing some things and very
bad at doing others. Perhaps the father
of that family was very good at farming but only an OK carpenter. Perhaps the mother of that family was very
good at washing clothes but only a passable seamstress. Judging by the fact that they lived in a sod
hovel, it is unlikely anyone in that family was a very good home builder. The reality is that even that family would be
better off if they could produce lots of what they were good at producing, in this case
probably crops, and trade for things that they were not so good at
producing. And, indeed, they must have
traded for some things because it would be impossible for my great-grandfather
to, for example, construct all of his own tools: to mine the ore out of the ground, refine it, and hammer
it into shovels, plows, and hoes all by himself.
A family is better off spending
most of their time doing the things it does well, and trading for the things
that it does not do well. Today most
families take that to an extreme. Some
might have a member who is a very good secretary but no one who is very good at
making shoes, so they trade their time as a secretary for shoes. Some may have a member who is a very good
plumber but no one who is a very good dentist, so they trade their time
plumbing for the dentist’s time fixing teeth.
Nearly all of us trade some specialized skill for even the basic
necessities of life. Our food. Our house.
Our utilities. This strategy,
what economists call “specialization,” has lead to an enormous increase in
living standards as each person shifts into his or her most productive activity.
The same principle applies to a
nation. We cannot be good at everything,
and even if we were we would want to spend our time doing only the things we do
best and trading for the other things we want.
At one point we were the best country in the world at producing
oil. But over the years we have
exhausted the oil which was very easy to get in Texas and West Virginia. Today most of the easiest oil to collect is
in other countries. We should do what
we’re best at and allow those other countries to do what they're best at. This would bring prosperity to every country
as each is allowed to shift into their most productive activities.
It is often said that we need to become energy independent so that we won't have to fight all of these wars for oil. I don't accept that argument in the slightest. If we're fighting these wars over oil, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. It would be far more ethical, by all moral traditions of the world that I am aware of, to spend an extra trillion dollars on oil in a decade than to spend an extra trillion dollars occupying a country for a decade. But I don't even think I have to rely on moral arguments to make this case, because these wars have not driven the cost of oil down, they've driven it up. Wars, it has been famously said, do only two things: Kill people, and break things. In this case we've broken the oil infrastructure of Iraq making their oil more expensive. Additionally, we've crippled the finance sector of Iran, one of the worlds most oil rich countries, with all of our sanctions and made it much more expensive for them to upgrade their oil infrastructure and bring oil prices down.
Ultimately, these oil-rich countries will charge as much as the market will bear for their oil, and we'll charge as much as the market will bear for our products. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just the free market in action. You can protest, and whine about the OPEC cartel, but OPEC has been just about as effective as any other cartel which hasn't been enforced by the threat of violence (which is to say, not very effective).
In my opinion we would all be better served if our government brought the
troops home, stopped meddling in the internal politics of the Arab states, and
cultivated a strong trading relationship with whatever government those people
end up with. I suppose you could write me off as an “isolationist” but it seems to me that
those who would advocate shutting off our country to trade in certain products
or advocate large taxes, tariffs, or subsidies in the name of “self-sufficiency” or
“energy independence” are the ones who are truly “isolationist.”
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Gary Johnson's "Seven Principles of Good Government"
Over a year ago, I think, I donated $100 to Libertarian party presidential candidate Gary Johnson's "Our America Initiative" for the promise of receiving a copy of his forthcoming book when it was published. It was slated to be released in the summer of 2011. I was beginning to feel like I would never see it when a small, nondescript package arrived at my door a couple weeks ago bearing the Our America Initiative logo. I opened it up and found not just a copy of Gary Johnson's book, but a signed copy of his book. Yay!
During his time in office, Governor Johnson was wildly successful at keeping the state's budget under control, and at keeping state bureaucrats out of the way of the private sector. He vetoed 750 bills during his time in office (more than all the other governors in the country combined during that time) and ended up leaving New Mexico with a budget surplus. During his time in office the state's public sector workforce shrank by about 1,200 jobs, while the private sector workforce grew by more than 20,000 jobs. He cut taxes 14 times and never allowed a single tax to be increased during his 8 years as governor.
The principle that I think had the biggest impact on me, as Gary explained it, was his principle of always being honest and telling the truth. He explains how he was not always honest with his wife, Dee, when he was governor (and even before that). Not that he kept huge secrets from her, but he told her "white lies" sometimes because it was easier than telling the truth. Eventually he and his wife had grown far apart because he had not been totally honest and because the "white lies" compounded. They ended up getting a divorce, and not long after that his now ex-wife died suddenly from hypertensive cardiovascular disease. He still says he's guilt-ridden because of his actions that, in part, led to the divorce. It's a great warning for all of us who might think that telling a little "white lie" today might be easier than telling the truth. In the end, it probably won't be.
Overall, I found this book to be a good, quick read. It clearly doesn't have the meat of books written by previous libertarian presidential (and vice-presidential) candidates, probably because Gary Johnson is not a philosophical and rhetorical heavyweight, but it's packed with the life experiences of someone who has been to the promised land and fought hard to implement libertarian ideas. In the unlikely event that Gary Johnson actually makes it into the White House, I think it would be like the second (third?) coming of Grover Cleveland: An honest, incorruptible President who believes firmly in the rights of the individual.
The book itself is very short, 152 small pages with large type and dozens of pictures. The first six chapters explain Johnson's life story, and the final seven are each short essays on one of his principles of good government. The book is filled with anecdotes from his time in business, government, and competing as an athlete. If you've ever listened to one of Gary's speeches, or heard any extended interviews with him, you've probably heard at least a few of them already. (Very few were new to me, but I devour pretty much all the news on him and his campaign that's out there.)
Gary Johnson was the governor of New Mexico for 8 years. He ran a self-funded campaign as a complete outsider to politics, only having introduced himself to the Republican party a few weeks before entering the race for governor. He ended up winning the very close primary, and then went on to win the general election to become New Mexico's 29th governor.
Prior to his time as governor, Johnson was a construction entrepreneur who started a one-man handyman business and grew it into one of the largest construction firms in his state. He gives several anecdotes in his book about how hard work paid off for him, how just showing up on time and doing what you're asked to do (or maybe a little bit more than what you're asked to do) was the key to his success in business.
These are Gary Johnson's seven principles of good government, which the last half of his book explains:
These are Gary Johnson's seven principles of good government, which the last half of his book explains:
- become reality based
- always be honest and tell the truth
- always do what is right and fair
- determine a goal and set a plan for reaching it
- make sure everyone who should know your goal, does
- acknowledge mistakes immediately
- love what you're doing; if you don't, find something else to do
The principle that I think had the biggest impact on me, as Gary explained it, was his principle of always being honest and telling the truth. He explains how he was not always honest with his wife, Dee, when he was governor (and even before that). Not that he kept huge secrets from her, but he told her "white lies" sometimes because it was easier than telling the truth. Eventually he and his wife had grown far apart because he had not been totally honest and because the "white lies" compounded. They ended up getting a divorce, and not long after that his now ex-wife died suddenly from hypertensive cardiovascular disease. He still says he's guilt-ridden because of his actions that, in part, led to the divorce. It's a great warning for all of us who might think that telling a little "white lie" today might be easier than telling the truth. In the end, it probably won't be.
Overall, I found this book to be a good, quick read. It clearly doesn't have the meat of books written by previous libertarian presidential (and vice-presidential) candidates, probably because Gary Johnson is not a philosophical and rhetorical heavyweight, but it's packed with the life experiences of someone who has been to the promised land and fought hard to implement libertarian ideas. In the unlikely event that Gary Johnson actually makes it into the White House, I think it would be like the second (third?) coming of Grover Cleveland: An honest, incorruptible President who believes firmly in the rights of the individual.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Drug Testing Welfare Applicants
The Cost-Benefit Case
As you can see, the reason I don't think drug testing welfare applicants is a good idea is because it's a waste of money. Florida pioneered this strategy and ended up losing $45,780 (not including attorneys fees, court fees and the thousands of hours of staff time it took to implement this policy). On top of that, there is a strong suspicion at Gov. Rick Scott just pushed this measure because he has ties to the drug testing company "Solantic." So, really, this whole thing reeks of corruption and graft. Sure, it sounds plausible. Who would defend giving money to drug addicts? But the fact is it cost an extra $118,140 over and above what Floridians were paying for welfare already, drug addicts and all, to screen the applicant pool and knock the cost down by $72,360. Clearly the cost exceeds the benefit, and from a consequentialist standpoint the policy should be rejected.
The Constitutional Case
The ACLU has argued that drug testing welfare applicants is unconstitutional because it violates the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches. As I stated in the facebook thread, I don't buy that line of argument. The 4th Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches, as I see it, applies to situations where a citizen is just minding his own business and the government decides to come in and search him or his property without cause. In this case, it seems to me that the citizen is going to the government to apply for welfare, and the government is just making sure the applicant passes the criteria it has set up for the program.
I am willing to admit it's a bit of a gray area, and I'm not comfortable making that constitutional case too forcefully. For example, based on my line of reasoning you could say, "Kyle, when you use government roads voluntarily, does that mean the government has a right to search your car as a condition of driving on them?" I would be very uncomfortable answering yes to that question. I think that a program could be setup that would search every car on the road and be constitutional, but the government would need to have checkpoints at every driveway, or the exit of every neighborhood, or the entrance of every freeway, so that there was no "reasonable expectation of privacy" (the legal test established in Katz v. United States to determine whether an unwarranted search is constitutional or not) when driving on government roads. I think a program that actually passed that constitutional test would cost trillions in enforcement costs and lost productivity for absolutely no benefit whatsoever, but it would be constitutional.
Rather than comparing drug testing of welfare applicants to random searches on the highway, I would compare it to admissions at a public university. To be admitted to a public university you need to meet certain requirements: GPA, SAT scores, and perhaps extracurricular activities. You provide this information when you apply for government colleges, just as you would for private colleges, so that the government can screen the applicant pool. That's more what I see going on here.
Of course, just because something is constitutional doesn't mean it's a good idea. Just look at the post office, which is specifically authorized in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution.
Should The Applicants Pay?
In Joe's parting shot, he said that he thought the applicants should pay for the drug tests instead of the government. That's a fair enough sentiment, I suppose, but it wouldn't make a lot of difference. It's just an accounting gimmick that doesn't change how resources are actually used. If applicants end up passing the drug test and getting welfare, as 98% of them will, they will end up recouping their losses from the welfare benefits. So really what you're doing when you make the applicants pay for drug testing is reducing welfare benefits.
You might think I'd be in favor of reducing welfare benefits. Well, I am, but this isn't reducing welfare benefits, it's just shifting the welfare benefits around. What do I mean? You do cut benefits to the welfare beneficiaries, but the money saved is now going to drug testing companies for make-work jobs that we've already determined are useless. It's now just corporate welfare instead of social welfare.
In the final analysis, if welfare applicants don't have to pay for the drug tests it's just a pointless increase in government spending. If welfare applicants are made to pay for the drug tests social welfare spending is transformed into corporate welfare for some lucky drug testing companies. It makes no difference. It's a shell game.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) and the US Sugar Program
I usually wish he'd go much further than he does, but I generally like what I hear from him when it comes to the budget and the economy. So imagine my surprise on Wednesday afternoon when I checked my youtube subscriptions and found this atrocity waiting for me:
So what, you ask, is the US Sugar Program, and why is Senator Crapo's support of it so disappointing?
The US Sugar Program was one of the programs started by FDR during the Great Depression to elevate the price of sugar. The theory then was that farm prices were collapsing, and elevating them above the market price would "fix" the economy. Of course that didn't work (for reasons you can discover for yourself in Henry Hazlitt's classic book "Economics in One Lesson" if you don't understand them already), and most of the programs eventually expired. For example, we somehow realized that slaughtering pigs as a "cure" for low pork prices was utterly counterproductive. But the US Sugar Program has remained a fixture.
The program works to inflate US sugar prices by restricting imports of sugar and setting a floor under sugar prices by buying surplus sugar production. According to the Heritage Foundation US sugar prices have been elevated by 49% over the world price, as of May 2012, because of the restrictions on imports. These elevated prices are undoubtedly good for sugar producers, but what about the food processing industries that use sugar? Not so much. In fact, it's the main reason that the US candy industry has been on the decline. Economist Dan Griswold, of the Cato Institute, has documented in his book "Mad About Trade" that candy companies like Hershey's, Brachs and Kraft have closed dozens of candy manufacturing plants in the US over the past decade or two and moved production to countries like Canada and Mexico because the sugar price in those countries is much closer to the world price. So, in essence, Senators like the "Honorable" Mr. Crapo have decided that the US would rather have jobs producing and stockpiling sugar nobody wants (12 pounds of surplus sugar per American each year according to Mr. Crapo himself!) than high wage jobs manufacturing candy products that the market is actually demanding. And he has been willing to take your money and pay more than $2 billion over the past 10 years just to warehouse all of this excess sugar.
Incidentally, the US should probably not even be producing sugar at all. Brazil can produce a pound of sugar for roughly 1/3 the price it costs US farmers to produce it. So it's no wonder sugar producers pay for more than 34% of US farm lobbying, and 54% of it's Political Action Committee donations, despite producing less than 2% of the value of all US crops. I think every American should be outraged that these people are ripping you off and Senator Crapo is helping them do it. Morally it's as if the US sugar producers paid Mr. Crapo to kidnap and beat up sugar consumers that refused to pay the elevated prices or bought from foreign sellers. The only difference is that we call him an "Honorable" Senator instead of a gangster, and he uses the police instead of mob soldiers.
But what really irritates me is not that he's complicit in ripping us off, but that he's using completely backwards economic reasoning to do it. It wouldn't be so bad if Mr. Crapo were on a committee overseeing some tiny corner of the economy or focusing on foreign policy or something like that, but this guy is on the committees overseeing banking and the financial sector. He's even the ranking member on the "Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment!" It is unbelievable that a person in his position would tell us with a straight face that price floors theoretically create shortages, and act like it's a great vindication of this particular price floor that it has instead created a massive surplus (just as Econ 101 predicts it should).
One last unintended consequence of this boneheaded policy (combined with the ridiculous US corn subsidies), that the Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gov. Gary Johnson sometimes talks about, is that US food processing companies end up putting high-fructose corn syrup into their products instead of using sugar. Now I'm not an expert on the health ramifications of this, but apparently that's not the greatest thing for Americans' health. Some have argued it's a major contributor to obesity in the US.
So basically, this policy is leaving Americans fat, broke, and unemployed. We've known how bad these policies are at least since the days of Fredrick Bastiat and Adam Smith, and yet they still continue to pop up and even thrive because of the support of economically illiterate politicians like Mr. Crapo. Here's to hoping American/Cascadian politicians eventually come to their senses. I won't hold my breath in anticipation.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Peter Schiff's "The Real Crash"
Anyone who knows anything about my regular media consumption habits probably has a good basis for suspecting that Peter Schiff is my favorite pundit, radio show host, and writer. (That suspicion would probably be correct, although I hesitate to pick favorites.) I don't remember where I first heard of Peter Schiff, but I think it was when he ran for Senate in Connecticut in 2010. He was one of the few Republican senate candidates across the country in that election that I thought was really carrying the banner of liberty. I ended up donating some money to his campaign and also making a few hundred phone calls on his behalf as a volunteer. Yeah, I guess you could call me a regular "Schiff-head."
Peter's most remarkable quality has been his ability to speak what he thinks is the truth to any audience, without any fear of conflict, and without any regard for hurt feelings (although he rarely, if ever, makes it personal). This has lead to some hilarious interviews, congressional testimony, and speeches. Probably my favorite was his speech before the Mortgage Bankers Conference in Las Vegas in 2006. He laid out, in stunning detail, exactly why most of the members of the audience were about to go belly up financially. In the Q&A period one of the questioners even asked, "So are you just saying I should slit my wrists?" Obviously Peter wasn't advocating suicide, but his thesis was proven correct a year later. The housing market collapsed, and we're still (unfortunately and unnecessarily) reeling from that shock.
But Peter doesn't think that the housing bubble was the worst of what's in store for America's troubled economy. Not even close. In the first two chapters of his latest book, "The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy, How to Save Yourself and Your Country," Peter argues that the government's actions in response to the housing bubble (TARP, Stimulus I and II, Quantitative Easing I, II, and potentially III, etc.) have led to unsustainable levels of government debt, and that either the banking sector will be wiped out when the government defaults on it's debt if interest rates rise, or the economy will be wiped out by hyper-inflation if the Fed decides to fix interest rates at perpetually low levels.
The next nine chapters are focused on what the government can do in order to fix the economy with minimal pain. I say "minimal" pain, because the fact is there is going to be a lot of pain no matter which course we choose to go. We may have more or less pain, sooner or later, but the pain is unavoidable at this point. Peter's prescriptions for the economy are more or less the standard laissez-faire policies that any free market type would advocate: sound money, deregulation, and better tax policy. He specifically advocates for the FairTax, which would throw out the entire federal tax code and all the taxes within it in favor of a single national sales tax. I like that idea a lot.
Peter takes special care in advocating the destruction of the "third-rails" of politics: Medicare and Social Security. It's obvious, to anyone who has bothered to look at the numbers, that these programs are unsustainable. They simply can't continue as they are currently structured forever, or even much longer. Medicare alone will bankrupt this country in short order if it is not changed. Peter advocates means testing these benefits so that they only apply to the people who really need them, instead of feathering the nests of well-off seniors. As he points out, the benefits end up as just a subsidy for whoever inherits these wealthy seniors' wealth since the seniors themselves can afford to pay for their medical expenses out of pocket or purchase some kind of insurance product (and if they can't, means testing obviously wouldn't apply to them).
The final chapter, as well as little blurbs throughout the book, focuses on how to position your investments to prepare for the collapse that Peter thinks is coming. I don't really have any assets to invest so this is not really applicable in my case, but it was a really interesting read. He recommends a "three-legged stool" of quality dividend paying stocks chosen for their ability to profit from the collapse, cash and bonds in countries with sound monetary and fiscal policy, and gold and gold mining stocks.
Perhaps the most interesting part in this book was an appendix which briefly reviewed the history of monetary policy in the United States, including numerous Supreme Court citations. There's been a huge argument lately over whether it is even legal for the government to produce paper money, since the constitution declares that states can only make gold and silver legal tender and prohibits government from emitting "bills of credit." I think Peter shows conclusively and indisputably that paper currency is illegal according to the constitution. Of course, it doesn't matter because the Constitution today says whatever a few robed political appointees say it says. Ah well...
As (I think) with all books I read, I have a couple areas of disagreement with this book. The biggest one was on the issue of birthright citizenship. Peter went through advocating a bunch of great reforms that would move the US much closer to an open and rational immigration policy, and then in a final paragraph he decided to just throw in (what felt to me like) "Oh, and by the way, we should end birthright citizenship." He doesn't really defend it at all, or even argue why it's necessary. It's just thrown in there as a solution without a problem, and I happen to think that government solutions to non-existent problems are very dangerous. Ending birthright citizenship would visit massive bureaucracy on every birth in the US. It would be a boon for attorneys. We'd need to have a national registry of citizens and/or a national ID card. We'd end up spending a fortune to figure out who is and who is not a citizen. And for what? No benefit whatsoever that I can see. A lot of people, I think Peter included but I don't remember for certain, argue that the 14th Amendment made birthright citizenship the law of the land. This is just not true. There has been a long tradition of birthright citizenship in the US before the 14th Amendment, and going back to the common law of England and continental Europe. It's a wonderful, unambiguous, bright line rule. It needs to stay. Check out this presentation at the Cato Institute for more information on the pitfalls of ending birthright citizenship.
But despite that minor criticism, I thought the book was very sound. For someone who likes their public policy reading spiced with a little bit of investment advice, I think it's probably the only way to go. And, by the way, Peter's dad, Irwin Schiff, wrote a fantastic comic book decades ago that you can now get online for free here. So if you don't have money to pick up "The Real Crash," be sure to at least check that out.
Peter's most remarkable quality has been his ability to speak what he thinks is the truth to any audience, without any fear of conflict, and without any regard for hurt feelings (although he rarely, if ever, makes it personal). This has lead to some hilarious interviews, congressional testimony, and speeches. Probably my favorite was his speech before the Mortgage Bankers Conference in Las Vegas in 2006. He laid out, in stunning detail, exactly why most of the members of the audience were about to go belly up financially. In the Q&A period one of the questioners even asked, "So are you just saying I should slit my wrists?" Obviously Peter wasn't advocating suicide, but his thesis was proven correct a year later. The housing market collapsed, and we're still (unfortunately and unnecessarily) reeling from that shock.
But Peter doesn't think that the housing bubble was the worst of what's in store for America's troubled economy. Not even close. In the first two chapters of his latest book, "The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy, How to Save Yourself and Your Country," Peter argues that the government's actions in response to the housing bubble (TARP, Stimulus I and II, Quantitative Easing I, II, and potentially III, etc.) have led to unsustainable levels of government debt, and that either the banking sector will be wiped out when the government defaults on it's debt if interest rates rise, or the economy will be wiped out by hyper-inflation if the Fed decides to fix interest rates at perpetually low levels.
Peter takes special care in advocating the destruction of the "third-rails" of politics: Medicare and Social Security. It's obvious, to anyone who has bothered to look at the numbers, that these programs are unsustainable. They simply can't continue as they are currently structured forever, or even much longer. Medicare alone will bankrupt this country in short order if it is not changed. Peter advocates means testing these benefits so that they only apply to the people who really need them, instead of feathering the nests of well-off seniors. As he points out, the benefits end up as just a subsidy for whoever inherits these wealthy seniors' wealth since the seniors themselves can afford to pay for their medical expenses out of pocket or purchase some kind of insurance product (and if they can't, means testing obviously wouldn't apply to them).
The final chapter, as well as little blurbs throughout the book, focuses on how to position your investments to prepare for the collapse that Peter thinks is coming. I don't really have any assets to invest so this is not really applicable in my case, but it was a really interesting read. He recommends a "three-legged stool" of quality dividend paying stocks chosen for their ability to profit from the collapse, cash and bonds in countries with sound monetary and fiscal policy, and gold and gold mining stocks.
Perhaps the most interesting part in this book was an appendix which briefly reviewed the history of monetary policy in the United States, including numerous Supreme Court citations. There's been a huge argument lately over whether it is even legal for the government to produce paper money, since the constitution declares that states can only make gold and silver legal tender and prohibits government from emitting "bills of credit." I think Peter shows conclusively and indisputably that paper currency is illegal according to the constitution. Of course, it doesn't matter because the Constitution today says whatever a few robed political appointees say it says. Ah well...
As (I think) with all books I read, I have a couple areas of disagreement with this book. The biggest one was on the issue of birthright citizenship. Peter went through advocating a bunch of great reforms that would move the US much closer to an open and rational immigration policy, and then in a final paragraph he decided to just throw in (what felt to me like) "Oh, and by the way, we should end birthright citizenship." He doesn't really defend it at all, or even argue why it's necessary. It's just thrown in there as a solution without a problem, and I happen to think that government solutions to non-existent problems are very dangerous. Ending birthright citizenship would visit massive bureaucracy on every birth in the US. It would be a boon for attorneys. We'd need to have a national registry of citizens and/or a national ID card. We'd end up spending a fortune to figure out who is and who is not a citizen. And for what? No benefit whatsoever that I can see. A lot of people, I think Peter included but I don't remember for certain, argue that the 14th Amendment made birthright citizenship the law of the land. This is just not true. There has been a long tradition of birthright citizenship in the US before the 14th Amendment, and going back to the common law of England and continental Europe. It's a wonderful, unambiguous, bright line rule. It needs to stay. Check out this presentation at the Cato Institute for more information on the pitfalls of ending birthright citizenship.
But despite that minor criticism, I thought the book was very sound. For someone who likes their public policy reading spiced with a little bit of investment advice, I think it's probably the only way to go. And, by the way, Peter's dad, Irwin Schiff, wrote a fantastic comic book decades ago that you can now get online for free here. So if you don't have money to pick up "The Real Crash," be sure to at least check that out.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Conversation With An Immigration Restrictionist
Immigration is an issue that, in my opinion, a lot of libertarians still have trouble coming to grips with reality on. Even libertarian paragons like Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard held relatively restrictionist views (in practice, anyway, not necessarily in theory) when it came to immigration. Even Ron Paul (who I think is fantastic on virtually every other issue) wants to put armed troops on the border with Mexico! Don't think for a minute they'd just be playing poker...
I, myself, am an almost completely open immigration type and it's an issue that I love to debate. I even managed to convince a Libertarian candidate running for congress to change his position on birthright citizenship earlier this year.
A few months ago I had an interesting conversation with an immigration restrictionist, who also happens to be a fellow member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Washington and supporter of Ron Paul, over facebook. Here is the exchange:
RLC Person: Can we talk about immigration? I'd like to try to understand why some of you seem to think the US has no right to prevent citizens from other nations from crossing our borders to live and/or work.
Me: I don't think the US has *no* right to restrict immigration, but I think that the burden of proof should be on those who seek to prevent peaceful people from trying to improve their lives rather than on those who would allow it. I think if you take that view there are only really two reasons why you should prevent someone from immigrating (and please, if you've got another one let me know):
1.) They have a criminal background.
2.) They carry a deadly and contagious disease.
That's it. Get rid of quotas, and let all peaceful people immigrate and it will be much easier to catch those who would do us harm.
RLC Person: Kyle, do you think America belongs to the American people?
Me: What do you mean by "America"? Americans own most of the land in America. But that doesn't mean immigrants couldn't rent an apartment (which is a mutually beneficial trade). I don't accept the argument that one person, or group of people, should be able to prevent a mutually beneficial trade without overcoming a significant burden of proof.
RLC Person: I mean, do you think this nation belongs to Americans, as in US citizens.
Me: I believe in a limited government. Regardless of who controls it (and yeah, I guess theoretically US citizens control the government but I tend to think of the government as "them" rather than "us" since they generally don't represent anything I stand for). Regardless of who the government belongs to, there should be limits on its power. One of the limits should be on their ability to prevent peaceful people from working to improve their lives.
RLC Person: OK, so do you think you have some sort of natural right to move and work in Australia or Mexico or Denmark if that's what you'd like to do? You don't think the people of Australia and Mexico and Denmark have the right to decide who gets to live and work in their nations?
Me: The only right they have to prevent me from doing so is derived from the barrel of a gun. It is not any kind of natural right.
RLC Person: Do you have the right to prevent other peaceful people from entering your home and sleeping in your bed, rocking in your chair, or eating your Quaker Oats?
Me: Yes, I own my home. But this is a false analogy. Immigrants do not break into people's houses. They generally rent apartments from people who enjoy collecting the rent. If no one would rent or sell them a place to stay, they could not come.
RLC Person: No, it is not a false analogy. America is home to Americans, not Australians.
Me: Yes, it is a false analogy. Here is a closer analogy:
Do you have the right to prevent your neighbor from renting his basement out to other peaceful people? Do you have the right to prevent those peaceful people from purchasing food at "your" local grocery store?
The answer is no because your neighbors house is not yours, even though it is in your neighborhood, and the local grocery store owner is the one who owns the grocery store.
RLC Person: That would be all well and good if the neighbors new tennents weren't using the local ER for medical treatment they can't pay for, sending their ESL students to the neighborhood schools etc...
Me: Ok, so now what you are asking is a totally different question. Do we have the right to prevent immigrants from using government services? The answer is an *emphatic* "yes." [In retrospect, I should have pointed out that this may not be a great idea in every case, but ah well... live and learn.]
RLC Person: Even if all of the other issues are worked out...government services, and taxes the issue of limited resources will continue to exist. So, unless we're going to acquire additional land, water, energy etc we still cannot allow everyone who would like to live and work here come without diminishing the quality of life of future generations.
Me: Limited resources is not an issue. You need to understand economics. These people produce things. Every dollar they earn represents more than a dollar of goods or services that they provided to the market. And anyway, the market prevents things from becoming scarce. Scarcity means increased prices and profits, more room for entrepreneurs to enter the market and keep everyone happy. It is NOT an issue.
The price of resources goes down over time, and has for hundreds of years. This reflects the decreasing scarcity of these resources. In fact, the only factor of production that reliably becomes more expensive over time is labor. What does that mean? We have a scarcity in people (and it's created by the government preventing people from immigrating!).
RLC Person: If there is one thing this country is not facing a scarcity of it is people. Additional people require additional space, water and energy. They produce additional trash and pollution.
Me: Additional people also produce clean water and energy, they build places to live (and if you lived where I do, in rural Eastern Washington, claiming that we lack space would not pass the laugh test), and they clean up trash and pollution. The cleanest places in the world are also the most advanced.
People produce more than they consume. Every dollar they earn represents more than a dollar of goods or services that they provided.
RLC Person: Tell it to the trees, the wolves, the rivers, the bears, and all of the other species threatened or endangered by loss of habitat to human activity and the people inhaling the air in San Bernardino and other areas plagued by smog.
Me: Do you think that people create more pollution in poor countries (where they literally do their laundry in the rivers) or in an advanced country like the United States? Isn't it better for the environment to have these people living in a prosperous country than in poverty?
RLC Person: Kyle, the answers to these problems cannot be solved by letting them all come HERE. The answers to the problems of the citizens of other nations rest with them. We cannot house the world any more than we can police the world.
Me: Who are you to decide whether they should be allowed to go anywhere? If they are coming here and renting an apartment from someone who wants to rent it to them of course they can be housed here.
RLC Person: You need to read my previous statement and consider the truth I just stated, Kyle.
Me: It's not a truth. It's just a slogan. It's like saying "We can't police the world so we can't feed the world." Well, we already feed the world. It doesn't matter if they're here or not. These are problems of economics, not government, and the market solves these problems very well.
RLC Person: The problem isn't just economics. What did you read a couple of books or articles and now everythings about the free market? The world is a complicated place and living in it requires more than just a sound economy.......which in case you hadn't noticed......we don't have to share with all of these people you want to throw the doors open to.
BTW, we do not "feed the world". Hell, we don't even feed ourselves. Go to a supermarket, a big one.....say Walmart or other large chain and look at the produce, check out all of those country of origin labels. Go on and look at canned and bottled foods like mushrooms and garlic and see what nation produced them. Head over to the seafood and check out just how much of the shrimp comes from other countries.
I don't know where you've spent your young life, in school I hope but you need to get out in the real world and live a little and see the way things actually are instead of the way you think they are or wish they would be.
At this point a lot of other members from the RLC started jumping in and arguing with her. After a while, she ended up posting a link to a schoolhouse rock song about "elbow room." I think that gives you a pretty good picture of the level of thinking we're dealing with on the restrictionist side.
Additional arguments in favor of a more open immigration policy can be found here, here, here, here and here.
I, myself, am an almost completely open immigration type and it's an issue that I love to debate. I even managed to convince a Libertarian candidate running for congress to change his position on birthright citizenship earlier this year.
A few months ago I had an interesting conversation with an immigration restrictionist, who also happens to be a fellow member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Washington and supporter of Ron Paul, over facebook. Here is the exchange:
RLC Person: Can we talk about immigration? I'd like to try to understand why some of you seem to think the US has no right to prevent citizens from other nations from crossing our borders to live and/or work.
Me: I don't think the US has *no* right to restrict immigration, but I think that the burden of proof should be on those who seek to prevent peaceful people from trying to improve their lives rather than on those who would allow it. I think if you take that view there are only really two reasons why you should prevent someone from immigrating (and please, if you've got another one let me know):
1.) They have a criminal background.
2.) They carry a deadly and contagious disease.
That's it. Get rid of quotas, and let all peaceful people immigrate and it will be much easier to catch those who would do us harm.
RLC Person: Kyle, do you think America belongs to the American people?
Me: What do you mean by "America"? Americans own most of the land in America. But that doesn't mean immigrants couldn't rent an apartment (which is a mutually beneficial trade). I don't accept the argument that one person, or group of people, should be able to prevent a mutually beneficial trade without overcoming a significant burden of proof.
RLC Person: I mean, do you think this nation belongs to Americans, as in US citizens.
Me: I believe in a limited government. Regardless of who controls it (and yeah, I guess theoretically US citizens control the government but I tend to think of the government as "them" rather than "us" since they generally don't represent anything I stand for). Regardless of who the government belongs to, there should be limits on its power. One of the limits should be on their ability to prevent peaceful people from working to improve their lives.
RLC Person: OK, so do you think you have some sort of natural right to move and work in Australia or Mexico or Denmark if that's what you'd like to do? You don't think the people of Australia and Mexico and Denmark have the right to decide who gets to live and work in their nations?
Me: The only right they have to prevent me from doing so is derived from the barrel of a gun. It is not any kind of natural right.
RLC Person: Do you have the right to prevent other peaceful people from entering your home and sleeping in your bed, rocking in your chair, or eating your Quaker Oats?
Me: Yes, I own my home. But this is a false analogy. Immigrants do not break into people's houses. They generally rent apartments from people who enjoy collecting the rent. If no one would rent or sell them a place to stay, they could not come.
RLC Person: No, it is not a false analogy. America is home to Americans, not Australians.
Me: Yes, it is a false analogy. Here is a closer analogy:
Do you have the right to prevent your neighbor from renting his basement out to other peaceful people? Do you have the right to prevent those peaceful people from purchasing food at "your" local grocery store?
The answer is no because your neighbors house is not yours, even though it is in your neighborhood, and the local grocery store owner is the one who owns the grocery store.
RLC Person: That would be all well and good if the neighbors new tennents weren't using the local ER for medical treatment they can't pay for, sending their ESL students to the neighborhood schools etc...
Me: Ok, so now what you are asking is a totally different question. Do we have the right to prevent immigrants from using government services? The answer is an *emphatic* "yes." [In retrospect, I should have pointed out that this may not be a great idea in every case, but ah well... live and learn.]
RLC Person: Even if all of the other issues are worked out...government services, and taxes the issue of limited resources will continue to exist. So, unless we're going to acquire additional land, water, energy etc we still cannot allow everyone who would like to live and work here come without diminishing the quality of life of future generations.
Me: Limited resources is not an issue. You need to understand economics. These people produce things. Every dollar they earn represents more than a dollar of goods or services that they provided to the market. And anyway, the market prevents things from becoming scarce. Scarcity means increased prices and profits, more room for entrepreneurs to enter the market and keep everyone happy. It is NOT an issue.
The price of resources goes down over time, and has for hundreds of years. This reflects the decreasing scarcity of these resources. In fact, the only factor of production that reliably becomes more expensive over time is labor. What does that mean? We have a scarcity in people (and it's created by the government preventing people from immigrating!).
RLC Person: If there is one thing this country is not facing a scarcity of it is people. Additional people require additional space, water and energy. They produce additional trash and pollution.
Me: Additional people also produce clean water and energy, they build places to live (and if you lived where I do, in rural Eastern Washington, claiming that we lack space would not pass the laugh test), and they clean up trash and pollution. The cleanest places in the world are also the most advanced.
People produce more than they consume. Every dollar they earn represents more than a dollar of goods or services that they provided.
RLC Person: Tell it to the trees, the wolves, the rivers, the bears, and all of the other species threatened or endangered by loss of habitat to human activity and the people inhaling the air in San Bernardino and other areas plagued by smog.
Me: Do you think that people create more pollution in poor countries (where they literally do their laundry in the rivers) or in an advanced country like the United States? Isn't it better for the environment to have these people living in a prosperous country than in poverty?
RLC Person: Kyle, the answers to these problems cannot be solved by letting them all come HERE. The answers to the problems of the citizens of other nations rest with them. We cannot house the world any more than we can police the world.
Me: Who are you to decide whether they should be allowed to go anywhere? If they are coming here and renting an apartment from someone who wants to rent it to them of course they can be housed here.
RLC Person: You need to read my previous statement and consider the truth I just stated, Kyle.
Me: It's not a truth. It's just a slogan. It's like saying "We can't police the world so we can't feed the world." Well, we already feed the world. It doesn't matter if they're here or not. These are problems of economics, not government, and the market solves these problems very well.
RLC Person: The problem isn't just economics. What did you read a couple of books or articles and now everythings about the free market? The world is a complicated place and living in it requires more than just a sound economy.......which in case you hadn't noticed......we don't have to share with all of these people you want to throw the doors open to.
BTW, we do not "feed the world". Hell, we don't even feed ourselves. Go to a supermarket, a big one.....say Walmart or other large chain and look at the produce, check out all of those country of origin labels. Go on and look at canned and bottled foods like mushrooms and garlic and see what nation produced them. Head over to the seafood and check out just how much of the shrimp comes from other countries.
I don't know where you've spent your young life, in school I hope but you need to get out in the real world and live a little and see the way things actually are instead of the way you think they are or wish they would be.
At this point a lot of other members from the RLC started jumping in and arguing with her. After a while, she ended up posting a link to a schoolhouse rock song about "elbow room." I think that gives you a pretty good picture of the level of thinking we're dealing with on the restrictionist side.
Additional arguments in favor of a more open immigration policy can be found here, here, here, here and here.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Libertarian Feminism
I recently came across a new sub-species of libertarian that I did not know about before: libertarian feminists. Now, obviously I have known that there are libertarian females (although, not that many, unfortunately) but libertarian feminists? From my, admittedly meager, knowledge of the subject, the term "libertarian feminism" seemed almost oxymoronic, at least in connotation if not in practice.
But despite the vaguely socialist reputation of feminism these days, the early history of feminism was apparently dominated by, mostly little known, "libertarian" feminists (at the time called "liberal" feminists, "liberal" being used in the classical sense). Born out of the anti-slavery movement, many of the libertarian types, like William Lloyd Garrison, who had worked to bring equal rights to blacks felt that women should have equal rights as well.
A broad definition of feminism would be the idea that women should be treated the same as men. Libertarianism holds that all individuals own themselves, and should be treated equally under the law. From these, perhaps imprecise, definitions it would seem that the term "libertarian feminist" is not oxymoronic at all. Quite the opposite, it seems redundant. In fact, libertarians would oppose, on principle, all of the laws that originally sparked the feminist movement: the problems with marriage law, divorce law, suffrage, etc. A wife who left her husband, for example, could be forcibly returned, not unlike a runaway slave. A man who assaulted or raped his wife wasn’t considered a criminal. There were lots of restrictions on property ownership for women. These kinds of laws are not compatible with the libertarian principle of self-ownership, or the non-aggression axiom.
Now, at this point in history, my impression is that practically all of those objectionable laws are gone. There are probably still a few remnants, and I'm sure any libertarian worth his salt would oppose them if he was made aware of them, but it seems to me that they're a pretty rare find and certainly not currently the most egregious fault of the state. What libertarian feminists deal with at this point are laws that are not explicitly anti-female, but implicitly anti-female.* Veronique de Rugy wrote an article for April's edition of Reason magazine listing many of the most important examples of these kinds of laws. Included are things like tax law, which punishes lower earning spouses by taxing them at their spouses' rate. Since most women earn less than their husbands (this is rapidly changing, but still technically true for the moment at least), women end up paying a higher tax rate, in practice, than men. The myriad laws that restrict workplace mobility also have a disproportionate effect on women, who leave and re-enter the workforce much more frequently than men because of childbirth. Restrictive immigration laws prevent low-wage labor from entering the country that could be used in child care, and end up forcing working mothers to pay more for daycare.
But today's non-libertarian feminists don't really focus on ending laws, hence the socialist reputation. Instead they seem to rally around passing laws to turn women into a protected class. That strategy is doomed to backfire, as it has for other protected classes. Just take one law intended to benefit women: mandatory paid maternity leave. As de Rugy explains, this law actually hurts women more than it helps by leaving all women, whether they choose to have a child or not, with a lower wage:
Another frequent refrain of the socialist feminists, as I guess I've dubbed them, is "equal pay for equal work." Libertarianism doesn't really have much to say about this, except to say that there shouldn't be laws against paying people unequally since it's a voluntary transaction. But economics does have something to say about "equal pay for equal work": as long as there is unequal pay for equal work, employers who hire workers from the less equal class will benefit and employers that discriminate will be hurt. This doesn't mean that racist or sexist businesses will go out of business, necessarily, but they will end up paying a price for their racism or sexism in the form of higher than average wages. So why do women only get paid 70 cents on the dollar (or whatever the current bogus figure is), compared to a man? They actually don't. The discrepancy is an artifact of how you slice up the numbers. If you look at similarly qualified men and women, none of whom have ever married (apples to apples, in other words), you find that women actually earn a few cents more per hour than a man for the same job. This makes intuitive sense to me, since all I hear my male friends complain about is how there are too few women at their workplace and how they wish there were more. I have never heard of a guy who complains about having too many women around (I'm sure he exists, but I have no sympathy for him).
The one area where some libertarians may have a principled objection to libertarian feminism would be on the issue of abortion. So far as I can tell, in order to be a libertarian feminist you have to be radically pro-choice. Most libertarians don't have a problem with this, but 30-40% of libertarians are pro-life on the principle of self ownership. There's really a divide in libertarianism on this issue and it has to do with what you define as a person, when a person obtains rights, etc. It's a complex issue, and one that probably deserves it's own post, so I'll leave the nuts and bolts of it for another day. Suffice to say, I think preventing the murder of ~650,000 female fetuses each year would be pro-woman, but I can understand how libertarians who do not think a fetus is entitled to rights would think of anti-abortion laws as anti-woman. In general I think pro-life libertarians seem to have a great amount of respect for the pro-choice position of other libertarians, and vice versa. Progressives and conservatives, for the most part, just end up talking past each other on the issue.
Anyway. In conclusion, libertarian feminism is way more awesome than socialist feminism.
*Many would argue that today's laws, and even culture, are more anti-male than anti-female. I don't really have too much of an opinion one way or the other when it comes to that, except to say that bad laws will always benefit certain groups at the expense of others, and there is no shortage of bad laws.
But despite the vaguely socialist reputation of feminism these days, the early history of feminism was apparently dominated by, mostly little known, "libertarian" feminists (at the time called "liberal" feminists, "liberal" being used in the classical sense). Born out of the anti-slavery movement, many of the libertarian types, like William Lloyd Garrison, who had worked to bring equal rights to blacks felt that women should have equal rights as well.
A broad definition of feminism would be the idea that women should be treated the same as men. Libertarianism holds that all individuals own themselves, and should be treated equally under the law. From these, perhaps imprecise, definitions it would seem that the term "libertarian feminist" is not oxymoronic at all. Quite the opposite, it seems redundant. In fact, libertarians would oppose, on principle, all of the laws that originally sparked the feminist movement: the problems with marriage law, divorce law, suffrage, etc. A wife who left her husband, for example, could be forcibly returned, not unlike a runaway slave. A man who assaulted or raped his wife wasn’t considered a criminal. There were lots of restrictions on property ownership for women. These kinds of laws are not compatible with the libertarian principle of self-ownership, or the non-aggression axiom.
Now, at this point in history, my impression is that practically all of those objectionable laws are gone. There are probably still a few remnants, and I'm sure any libertarian worth his salt would oppose them if he was made aware of them, but it seems to me that they're a pretty rare find and certainly not currently the most egregious fault of the state. What libertarian feminists deal with at this point are laws that are not explicitly anti-female, but implicitly anti-female.* Veronique de Rugy wrote an article for April's edition of Reason magazine listing many of the most important examples of these kinds of laws. Included are things like tax law, which punishes lower earning spouses by taxing them at their spouses' rate. Since most women earn less than their husbands (this is rapidly changing, but still technically true for the moment at least), women end up paying a higher tax rate, in practice, than men. The myriad laws that restrict workplace mobility also have a disproportionate effect on women, who leave and re-enter the workforce much more frequently than men because of childbirth. Restrictive immigration laws prevent low-wage labor from entering the country that could be used in child care, and end up forcing working mothers to pay more for daycare.
But today's non-libertarian feminists don't really focus on ending laws, hence the socialist reputation. Instead they seem to rally around passing laws to turn women into a protected class. That strategy is doomed to backfire, as it has for other protected classes. Just take one law intended to benefit women: mandatory paid maternity leave. As de Rugy explains, this law actually hurts women more than it helps by leaving all women, whether they choose to have a child or not, with a lower wage:
Government mandates that force employers to approve lengthy maternity leaves make hiring women of childbearing age less appealing. As a result, women are more likely to be unemployed or to see their compensation reduced, whether they want to have children or not. Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber has shown that real wages for women in the 1990s in states that require comprehensive maternity expenses fell, compared to states that don’t.And, on his radio show, Peter Schiff has frequently pointed out that provisions such as free birth control and the liability that comes with hiring a woman (the risk of a lawsuit from a woman who finds the workplace offensive or sexist) reduce wages and job opportunities for women in a similar way, while purporting to help them.
Another frequent refrain of the socialist feminists, as I guess I've dubbed them, is "equal pay for equal work." Libertarianism doesn't really have much to say about this, except to say that there shouldn't be laws against paying people unequally since it's a voluntary transaction. But economics does have something to say about "equal pay for equal work": as long as there is unequal pay for equal work, employers who hire workers from the less equal class will benefit and employers that discriminate will be hurt. This doesn't mean that racist or sexist businesses will go out of business, necessarily, but they will end up paying a price for their racism or sexism in the form of higher than average wages. So why do women only get paid 70 cents on the dollar (or whatever the current bogus figure is), compared to a man? They actually don't. The discrepancy is an artifact of how you slice up the numbers. If you look at similarly qualified men and women, none of whom have ever married (apples to apples, in other words), you find that women actually earn a few cents more per hour than a man for the same job. This makes intuitive sense to me, since all I hear my male friends complain about is how there are too few women at their workplace and how they wish there were more. I have never heard of a guy who complains about having too many women around (I'm sure he exists, but I have no sympathy for him).
The one area where some libertarians may have a principled objection to libertarian feminism would be on the issue of abortion. So far as I can tell, in order to be a libertarian feminist you have to be radically pro-choice. Most libertarians don't have a problem with this, but 30-40% of libertarians are pro-life on the principle of self ownership. There's really a divide in libertarianism on this issue and it has to do with what you define as a person, when a person obtains rights, etc. It's a complex issue, and one that probably deserves it's own post, so I'll leave the nuts and bolts of it for another day. Suffice to say, I think preventing the murder of ~650,000 female fetuses each year would be pro-woman, but I can understand how libertarians who do not think a fetus is entitled to rights would think of anti-abortion laws as anti-woman. In general I think pro-life libertarians seem to have a great amount of respect for the pro-choice position of other libertarians, and vice versa. Progressives and conservatives, for the most part, just end up talking past each other on the issue.
Anyway. In conclusion, libertarian feminism is way more awesome than socialist feminism.
*Many would argue that today's laws, and even culture, are more anti-male than anti-female. I don't really have too much of an opinion one way or the other when it comes to that, except to say that bad laws will always benefit certain groups at the expense of others, and there is no shortage of bad laws.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Rose Wilder Lane's "The Discovery of Freedom"
I'm not sure how I came across this book, but I'm honestly quite surprised that I hadn't heard of Rose Wilder Lane sooner. Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder (author of the "Little House on the Prairie" series of books that later inspired the TV show of the same name), Rose was a prolific writer in the first half of the 20th century. She wrote books and articles, traveling all over the world to find source material. She, along with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, is considered one of the founders of modern libertarianism.
Like a surprising number of libertarians, she identified with the communist ideology before eventually turning to libertarianism. Her conversion came on a trip she took to Soviet Russia as a volunteer with the Red Cross just after the first World War. Speaking with local villagers and witnessing the inefficiency and stupidity of central planing first-hand, she left Russia no longer a communist. She was instead instilled with a new found respect for the personal freedom that most of us take for granted in the United States. She vehemently opposed the New Deal, and published a pamphlet entitled "What is this, the Gestapo?" that was meant to remind Americans to guard their liberties even in the midst of WWII.
But however interesting her personal story is, her book "The Discovery of Freedom" focuses instead on the history of liberty in the world. She begins by establishing that the belief that an Authority (always capitalized in the text) is responsible for a people's welfare is a pagan religion. It is a belief in group morality, which is radically different than a belief in individual morality. And she shows that throughout history this belief has been pervasive; that the ancient leaders from all over the world were either supposed to be divine themselves, or supposedly possessed a divine duty to guide and care for their citizens.
Lane then points out that the first instance in history of an attempt to establish individual morality came from Abraham, who said there was only one God and espoused a belief in individual morality. She traces this line of thinking forward until the Jews finally anoint a King and belief in individual morality was once again smothered (but later was reignited for a time, she claims, by Jesus Christ). My favorite example here is the Old Testament story of Gideon who famously refused to become king of the Jews, telling them that only God was their ruler.
She then writes that the second attempt at establishing individual morality came with the advent of Islam. Mohammed, she says, was also a believer in monotheism and individual morality. His teachings crushed the local pagan religions and brought about a long period of prosperity and innovation for that region. She traces this civilization forward until the Crusades, which she documents as a horrific time for liberty. It was a time where the Kings of Europe believed they were even morally responsible for the thoughts of their subjects.
The third attempt at establishing individual morality, she documents, is in America. And it is only a few generations old. (A few more than since she wrote the book, I suppose, although a strong argument could be made that this attempt has already ended.) She talks extensively about the American Revolution, focusing specifically on Thomas Paine. She then explains how our Constitution is written much differently than the Magna Cartas of the Old World, that the enumerated powers within are delegated to government, as opposed to rights oh-so-graciously granted by government. Democracy, she also points out, is not what this is about. Belief in democracy, rule by majority opinion, is just the same ancient pagan belief in Authority dressed up a little differently.
I have to say, I really enjoyed this book. The prose was so clear and full of life (as it seems to be from many writers of that era). It went a little slow at first, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down. It's also really cool, in my opinion, that she really links religion to libertarianism. Many libertarians, mostly in the Ayn Rand tradition I suppose, spend a lot of time condemning religion or at best ignore it. I have a few quibbles with some of Rose Wilder Lane's interpretations of the Bible, but overall I think she does a fantastic job of linking the moral beliefs of Christianity to a moral belief in capitalism, maximum individual freedom, and the minimal state. (She probably also does a pretty good job with regard to Islam, but I don't know a lot about Islam so I can't really say for sure.)
The only thing I didn't like about this book is that she seems to have a thing against Germans. I guess it's understandable, since was writing during the time of WWII, but as a person of German heritage I was slightly offended at times. But that's ok. It's easy be wrong about Germans and right about liberty.
If you haven't read this book already, I would highly recommend it. You can find a pdf for free here, or pay a few bucks and get a nicely formatted version for your kindle here. (Or for other e-readers here.) Inspired by this book, I added Isabel Paterson's "The God of the Machine" to my list of books to read.
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| She really loved freedom. And also (apparently) hats. |
But however interesting her personal story is, her book "The Discovery of Freedom" focuses instead on the history of liberty in the world. She begins by establishing that the belief that an Authority (always capitalized in the text) is responsible for a people's welfare is a pagan religion. It is a belief in group morality, which is radically different than a belief in individual morality. And she shows that throughout history this belief has been pervasive; that the ancient leaders from all over the world were either supposed to be divine themselves, or supposedly possessed a divine duty to guide and care for their citizens.
Lane then points out that the first instance in history of an attempt to establish individual morality came from Abraham, who said there was only one God and espoused a belief in individual morality. She traces this line of thinking forward until the Jews finally anoint a King and belief in individual morality was once again smothered (but later was reignited for a time, she claims, by Jesus Christ). My favorite example here is the Old Testament story of Gideon who famously refused to become king of the Jews, telling them that only God was their ruler.
She then writes that the second attempt at establishing individual morality came with the advent of Islam. Mohammed, she says, was also a believer in monotheism and individual morality. His teachings crushed the local pagan religions and brought about a long period of prosperity and innovation for that region. She traces this civilization forward until the Crusades, which she documents as a horrific time for liberty. It was a time where the Kings of Europe believed they were even morally responsible for the thoughts of their subjects.
The third attempt at establishing individual morality, she documents, is in America. And it is only a few generations old. (A few more than since she wrote the book, I suppose, although a strong argument could be made that this attempt has already ended.) She talks extensively about the American Revolution, focusing specifically on Thomas Paine. She then explains how our Constitution is written much differently than the Magna Cartas of the Old World, that the enumerated powers within are delegated to government, as opposed to rights oh-so-graciously granted by government. Democracy, she also points out, is not what this is about. Belief in democracy, rule by majority opinion, is just the same ancient pagan belief in Authority dressed up a little differently.
I have to say, I really enjoyed this book. The prose was so clear and full of life (as it seems to be from many writers of that era). It went a little slow at first, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down. It's also really cool, in my opinion, that she really links religion to libertarianism. Many libertarians, mostly in the Ayn Rand tradition I suppose, spend a lot of time condemning religion or at best ignore it. I have a few quibbles with some of Rose Wilder Lane's interpretations of the Bible, but overall I think she does a fantastic job of linking the moral beliefs of Christianity to a moral belief in capitalism, maximum individual freedom, and the minimal state. (She probably also does a pretty good job with regard to Islam, but I don't know a lot about Islam so I can't really say for sure.)
The only thing I didn't like about this book is that she seems to have a thing against Germans. I guess it's understandable, since was writing during the time of WWII, but as a person of German heritage I was slightly offended at times. But that's ok. It's easy be wrong about Germans and right about liberty.
If you haven't read this book already, I would highly recommend it. You can find a pdf for free here, or pay a few bucks and get a nicely formatted version for your kindle here. (Or for other e-readers here.) Inspired by this book, I added Isabel Paterson's "The God of the Machine" to my list of books to read.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
We Need to Legalize Drugs. Seriously. (Also, Prostitution.)
So lately I've been watching these documentaries on drugs. They're pretty disturbing. Watching someone stick a needle into themselves makes me cringe every time, but even at a higher level it's so sad to watch people destroy their lives. And yet I guess it's like a train wreck (or so I've heard): I just can't turn away.
But as disturbing as these activities are, should they be illegal? As a libertarian, I say no. The only things that should even be considered for prohibition are those things which have negative third-party effects. And even then, those negative third-party effects need to be substantially greater than the negative third-party effects of the prohibition. (As Milton Friedman said, "There is a smokestack on the back of every government program." Which is to say, every government program has negative third-party effects: taxes, regulations, limits on human freedom, and unintended consequences.)
Are there negative third-party effects from drug use? Absolutely! Drug abuse destroys families and social institutions. Pregnant mothers who do drugs put their unborn children at risk of disease and deformity. Someone's got to treat an overdose (and drug addicts rarely have health insurance) or bury an addict who has overdosed to death. Those are all horrific third-party effects that would exist whether drugs were legal or illegal. But most of the third party effects normally associated with drugs, such as violence, disease, and property crime, are not third-party effects from the drugs themselves. They are artifacts of prohibition, they are the smokestacks on the back of the "War on Drugs." They are side-effects of the supposed cure and they are worse than the disease.
How does prohibition cause these things? Let's take a step back and go back to the documentaries. Much of their focus is on the production of drugs, which I find to be quite interesting as a chemical engineer. Most of the product gets made in Afghanistan or the jungles of South America. These people are using car jacks and wooden beams to press out water. They're mixing this stuff up in square wooden boxes and stirring it with sticks. As an engineer, I'm just watching this and thinking to myself, " This is ridiculous! Think how cheaply Pfizer or Merck could make this stuff with some modern equipment!" (Of course, they'd probably want to patent troll it and jack up the price, but that's another blog for another time.)
But shouldn't we want to keep the price high? No! The reason drug addicts are committing property crimes isn't because of some inherent property of the drugs, it's because they need to find ways to get a lot of money quickly and the only ways to do that are illegal. A heroin addict (apparently) needs about 3 hits a day to stay normal. That's about $100 per day at these inflated prices. You can't work a normal job and get that kind of money, especially when you're high all the time. But what if the price was $20 a day? Or $5 a day? (Like the average American's Starbucks fix?) As a junkie, you still won't have a normal life or career obviously, but your addiction suddenly becomes a lot smaller problem. Instead of having to steal car radios or break into houses, you can beg for some money from your neighbor or a charity. You can sweep floors for a few nights a week. Something like that. At the very least, you have to steal a lot fewer car radios.
Another thing you'll notice, if you watch the documentaries, is how many of the female addicts eventually turn to prostitution. Why can prostitution pay for an expensive addiction? Because their "goods," so to speak, are being sold at inflated, prohibition prices! If prostitution becomes legal, suddenly addicts can't just turn to it when they need some extra cash. They'd need to jump through all the hoops (health checks, job interviews, etc) just to be able to become competitive in the prostitution marketplace, and even then to command prices as high as they can today they'd probably have to be relatively professional about it. Would you buy an apple from some grungy looking girl on the corner? Of course not! But you might have to if you really wanted apples and apples were illegal. And you'd also probably have to pay through the nose even for an apple of questionable quality.
Back to drugs. Another problem with making these drugs in the most primitive way possible is that they become dangerous. In one of the documentaries there is a doctor who runs a heroin clinic that gives out free heroin to junkies who have a prescription. He describes the heroin found on the street as "soupy" whereas the medical quality heroin is completely clear. It's much safer. The heroin for sale on the street has probably been "stepped on" (diluted with junk like baking soda, sleeping pills, drywall, or even rat poison) over a dozen times along the way. It's of questionable quality and strength, and because of that a junkie can inadvertently take too large a dose (because he has no idea what is actually in one dose) or end up injecting a lot of harmful trash into himself along with the heroin.
You might say you're glad it's dangerous to do heroin. After all, less people will do it if it's dangerous. Well... you might be right about that, but if my brother (for example) had a heroin addiction I would much rather he be able to use it (relatively) safely than have to buy junk on the street. I would rather my brother get clean, but if he's not going to get clean I don't want him to die from an overdose or inject himself with harmful chemicals. I would want him to be able to get his fix in the safest possible way. The other up-side to letting people get their heroin at a clinic is that they can be checked for diseases like hepatitis, syphilis, and AIDS while they are there and get treatment. This reduces third party effects from the spread of disease.
Of note to the citizens of Cascadia, Washington state is going to have Initiative 502 on the ballot this fall which would basically decriminalize marijuana in the state of Washington. I've been talking about hard drugs in this blog, but they are a much harder case than marijuana. Marijuana is more or less a drug like alcohol, in fact it probably has fewer third party effects than alcohol. Treating it like alcohol seems extremely prudent. Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, why do we think prohibition of marijuana will?
But as disturbing as these activities are, should they be illegal? As a libertarian, I say no. The only things that should even be considered for prohibition are those things which have negative third-party effects. And even then, those negative third-party effects need to be substantially greater than the negative third-party effects of the prohibition. (As Milton Friedman said, "There is a smokestack on the back of every government program." Which is to say, every government program has negative third-party effects: taxes, regulations, limits on human freedom, and unintended consequences.)
Are there negative third-party effects from drug use? Absolutely! Drug abuse destroys families and social institutions. Pregnant mothers who do drugs put their unborn children at risk of disease and deformity. Someone's got to treat an overdose (and drug addicts rarely have health insurance) or bury an addict who has overdosed to death. Those are all horrific third-party effects that would exist whether drugs were legal or illegal. But most of the third party effects normally associated with drugs, such as violence, disease, and property crime, are not third-party effects from the drugs themselves. They are artifacts of prohibition, they are the smokestacks on the back of the "War on Drugs." They are side-effects of the supposed cure and they are worse than the disease.
How does prohibition cause these things? Let's take a step back and go back to the documentaries. Much of their focus is on the production of drugs, which I find to be quite interesting as a chemical engineer. Most of the product gets made in Afghanistan or the jungles of South America. These people are using car jacks and wooden beams to press out water. They're mixing this stuff up in square wooden boxes and stirring it with sticks. As an engineer, I'm just watching this and thinking to myself, " This is ridiculous! Think how cheaply Pfizer or Merck could make this stuff with some modern equipment!" (Of course, they'd probably want to patent troll it and jack up the price, but that's another blog for another time.)
 |
| Guy adding "chemicals" to the raw opium in the process of refining it into heroin, other guys stirring it with sticks. |
 | |
| Afghans pressing the water out of "refined" opium using a wooden plank. |
Another thing you'll notice, if you watch the documentaries, is how many of the female addicts eventually turn to prostitution. Why can prostitution pay for an expensive addiction? Because their "goods," so to speak, are being sold at inflated, prohibition prices! If prostitution becomes legal, suddenly addicts can't just turn to it when they need some extra cash. They'd need to jump through all the hoops (health checks, job interviews, etc) just to be able to become competitive in the prostitution marketplace, and even then to command prices as high as they can today they'd probably have to be relatively professional about it. Would you buy an apple from some grungy looking girl on the corner? Of course not! But you might have to if you really wanted apples and apples were illegal. And you'd also probably have to pay through the nose even for an apple of questionable quality.
Back to drugs. Another problem with making these drugs in the most primitive way possible is that they become dangerous. In one of the documentaries there is a doctor who runs a heroin clinic that gives out free heroin to junkies who have a prescription. He describes the heroin found on the street as "soupy" whereas the medical quality heroin is completely clear. It's much safer. The heroin for sale on the street has probably been "stepped on" (diluted with junk like baking soda, sleeping pills, drywall, or even rat poison) over a dozen times along the way. It's of questionable quality and strength, and because of that a junkie can inadvertently take too large a dose (because he has no idea what is actually in one dose) or end up injecting a lot of harmful trash into himself along with the heroin.
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| Would you rather buy your heroin from this guy (he's diluting it with sleeping pills right now)... |
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| Or this guy? |
Of note to the citizens of Cascadia, Washington state is going to have Initiative 502 on the ballot this fall which would basically decriminalize marijuana in the state of Washington. I've been talking about hard drugs in this blog, but they are a much harder case than marijuana. Marijuana is more or less a drug like alcohol, in fact it probably has fewer third party effects than alcohol. Treating it like alcohol seems extremely prudent. Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, why do we think prohibition of marijuana will?
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Where I Stand
I consider myself very pro-life but I also support an exception for rape and in the situation where the life of the mother is in danger. This is my reasoning:
Imagine I invite you to come up with me in my airplane. We reach 40,000 feet and we get in an argument. I tell you to leave my plane. You would, of course, protest: "You can't force me out of the airplane here! It's not safe! You brought me up here, into this dangerous situation, you have the obligation to do your best to bring me to safety!" I think your outrage would be justified, and I believe the same analysis is applicable to abortion. There is an obligation on the part of the mother and father (at least as far as he is able, without violating the rights of the mother), to do their best to bring the baby into the safe situation of birth. It was by their voluntary actions that the baby is in a dangerous situation and therefore there is an implicit contract committing them to work, as much as they are reasonably able, towards a safe birth.
However, a situation where the mother's life is in danger presents a problem. Someone must decide what the best course of action is based on the risk and potential consequences. Since the baby is not capable of making that assessment, the mother (hopefully with input from the father) is the only other logical choice. Sometimes life presents us with two bad choices and all we can do is try to decide on the one which is least bad.
In the case where the mother was raped she was not voluntarily involved in the act that produced the baby and therefore I don't think she should be forced to live with the consequences. I would personally have great respect for a woman who chose to carry her rapists baby, but I do not believe the state should force her to. However, if she did choose to abort I believe the rapist should be charged with manslaughter as well as rape.
The other exception that is widely accepted is in cases of incest. I do not understand the argument for making an exception in these circumstances. It seems to me like that exception was only made to protect a few members of the elite from embarrassment. But if someone has a good case to make, based on personal property rights, I'm open to it. I just don't see it right now.*
Pro-Choice Libertarians
When does a a fetus acquire rights? Some rights in our society, like the right to buy certain products, are reserved until the fetus has been born and reached age 18 or 21. Some rights, such as the right to property and the right to free speech, are acquired much earlier. How about the right to one's own body? There is no objective way, that I can see, of determining the point at which a fetus acquires that right. It's all a huge grey area. Personally, my conscience tells me that we should err on the side of not potentially killing millions of small, defenseless human beings. But I have to acknowledge that if you are thoroughly convinced that a fetus is just a part of the pregnant woman, and has no rights of its own (much like your liver has no rights of its own), then libertarian theory says you should be pro-choice. I respect the opinion of people who take a principled pro-choice position based on that, even though I disagree with them.
But there are also really bad reasons to be a pro-choice libertarian.
Some libertarians, like Jeff Miron in his otherwise excellent book "Libertarianism A to Z," make a utilitarian argument, saying that even if you think the fetus is a person, we might as well have legal abortions because abortions will happen anyway and they'll be more safe when they're legal. It's basically the same as one of the many arguments you'll hear libertarians make against the war on drugs, just with a little different spin on it. I think that is a hideous and ghastly way of thinking. Based on that reasoning you could also say that rape should be legal so that it could be performed in a doctors office, where it's set up to be safe and not transfer any STDs or get anyone an unwanted pregnancy. It might be safer for the rapist, but it's still a violent invasion of the rights of the victim, and that's why it's illegal. That's the point of government, in the mind of a libertarian: To protect individual rights. In the case of legal abortion, it may be safer for the mother, but it's clearly a violent invasion of the rights of the child. He's being killed!
There's also the argument that we need to keep population in check to save the environment, conserve resources, and save tax dollars. You usually find arguments like this on the economically illiterate left, but occasionally you'll run across it in libertarian circles as well. I don't buy it one bit. I would argue that the world benefits much more from more children than it is harmed. The biggest scarcity that exists in the world is ideas. More people mean more ideas and more prosperity. And kids don't just consume stuff. They'll eventually grow up and produce things, and they'll even pay taxes to cover the government services they use. Every dollar they eventually earn in a market economy means that they provided someone with something that they valued more than their dollar.
Ultimately, a society that sacrifices the future generation for good times in the present (whether that is through inflation, the national debt, or mass abortions) cannot be a growing and thriving society. Whether or not you're pro-life, I think we should all realize that abortion is nothing to be celebrated.
*You could say, "Most cases of incest are rape." That's fine, but incest is not necessarily rape. If there is a rapist, he should be charged and not let off the hook just to avoid family embarrassment. This is a human life we're talking about, after all! And if it is consensual then there is no logical reason I can see for an exception.